Top 40 Singles of 2008: Little Big Town - "Fine Line" (#23)

Little Big Town rebounded from a terrible debut album to release some of Country music's most classic singles of the decade. Now signed to Capitol Records, the quartet has managed to pay homage to Fleetwood Mac with this fine single from "A Place To Land."

Consisting of two males and two females who weren’t related, Little Big Town was always going to garner comparisons to Fleetwood Mac, particularly after they left the glossy stuff on their self-titled Sony debut for the self-made acoustic roots sounds of “Boondocks” in 2006. By the time their third album “A Place To Land” arrived late last year, the band was even more reflective of Fleetwood Mac as Jimi Westbrook and Karen Fairchild had married. Right after the band moved from Equity Records (using an opt-out clause) to Capitol Records, they released “Fine Line,” a track that further enhanced the Fleetwood Mac comparisons.

While radio didn’t like this single as much as previous singles, “Fine Line” still managed to heighten my anticipation of the band’s re-issue of “A Place to Land” and the new tracks not featured on the record. What is striking about “Fine Line” is that, once the chorus hits, the song sounds like something from the 1970s. While some purists would love to claim that this song isn’t country, it is when placed in a modern Country music context. The harmonies shimmer and the lyric about the fine line between being in and out of love certainly has a country undercurrent to it. All of this is enough for us at Roughstock to select “Fine Line” as the 23rd best Country single of the year.